It may seem like longer, but it was just six short months ago that the Dallas Cowboys were supposedly concerned about a video that may or may not exist that some claim shows Dez Bryant doing something that would not reflect well on his public image. We still don’t know if such a video exists, but we know the Cowboys were concerned about it.
In a wide-ranging interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Bryant admitted that Jerry Jones is the one who informed him about the video tape rumors.
“The first time I heard that was from Mr. Jones last season,” Bryant said. “He said there was a tape of me that might get out.”
Bryant maintains that the tape doesn’t exist. Local authorities have supported that claim. The Cowboys reportedly were once concerned about an incident involving a car registered to Bryant that took place outside a Walmart store in 2011, but police say they have looked into the existence of a surveillance tape and found nothing.
The Cowboys previously denied having any knowledge of an alleged tape, but Bryant’s revelation that Jones is the one who informed him about it indicates that is not true. Like the rest of us, they were clearly aware of the rumors and did not ignore them.
One of the more interesting twists in the video saga was a report that Bryant was being blackmailed and his old agent — before he switched to Roc Nation — had been paying hush money. David Wells, one of Bryant’s former advisers, has been accused of leaking the story. Wells denied that when speaking to Rolling Stone, but he seemed to indicate that he believes something happened in the Walmart parking lot that involved Bryant.
“But have you seen the police report?” Wells asked. “Have you heard the 911 call? Something happened in that parking lot, and I didn’t drum it up!”
You can read the details of the alleged Walmart incident here.
Rolling Stone also dove into the thousands of dollars that changed hands between Wells and Bryant when Wells was acting as a middle man between Dez and the Cowboys. Wells was involved in the creation of the special rules the Cowboys laid out for Bryant to keep him out of trouble, and Bryant claims Wells was fleecing him.
“I was done with him, man – I’d seen through his (expletive),” Bryant said. “But then the thing happened with my mom, and that just let him right back in again. They treat me like I’m some kind of one-man crime wave. I told Mr. Jones, ‘I’m not Michael Irvin,’ but he wasn’t trying to hear me out.”
The incident involving Bryant’s mother took place in 2012, when he allegedly assaulted her but the charges were later dropped.
Considering the Cowboys signed Bryant to a long-term extension, you have to assume they are confident the rumored video either doesn’t exist or will never get out. The initial concern was that it would have the same type of impact that the Ray Rice video had. Apparently that concern has dwindled.
